Apparently there used to be trillions of oysters in the area. Turns out humans were the predator.

Humans reduced their numbers, but human pollution is what wiped them out.

This is alluded to in the article, they want wild oysters to join the population. Most likely to increase genetic diversity.

I would imagine this is a good start, people can identify with oysters and they can then start to use funding to diversify the biosphere down the line.

> they want wild oysters to join the population.

I assumed that these oysters were grown by locating a rare wild oyster, or two, and having them spawn in captivity, producing huge numbers of offspring in a generation or two.

So they would be "wild oysters" genetically speaking. Although less genetically diverse than the whole wild population.